When we think of Versailles, we think of Marie Antoinette, opulence, and the last hurrah of the aristocratic high life before the French Revolution put an end to such folly in 1789. We may also think of philosophers like Voltaire and the age of the enlightenment, but less well-known is the palace’s crucial role in supporting the sciences.

As a new exhibition, “Versailles: Science and Splendour” at the Science Museum in London until April 21, 2025, shows, the French court was motivated to sponsor scientific research as a means of consolidating power and expanding colonial rule. In 1666, Louis XIV established the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, which, unlike peer institutions in Italy or Britain, paid members a salary and covered their lodgings and equipment, meaning their endeavors were all done in the king’s service.

Subsequent kings Louis XV and Louis XVI were so keen on science that they even carried out experiments themselves. At court, they were routinely presented with the latest inventions or discoveries, sometimes even watching live demonstrations, and to receive this opportunity was the greatest mark of distinction for an ambitious scientist in France. Unsurprisingly, the Crown tended to favor advantageous developments, such as chemistry for artillery, astronomy for navigation, cartography for the mapping of French territories, and medicine for public heath.

Henri Testelin, “Fondazione dell’Accademia delle Scienze e dell’Osservatorio, a Parigi nel 1666”. pic.twitter.com/idECbBWr7v

— Leo Corneli (@gandalf1948) January 19, 2023

As such, Versailles became a hub of knowledge-sharing that attracted many different kinds of scientists, then known as “savants” or “natural philosophers.” Even Benjamin Franklin shared his theories about electricity and the lightning conductor with French scientists during a diplomatic visit to the palace in 1778.

But how to get the message out about this impressive bustle of learned activity, and promote France’s role in the advancement of scientific research? The answer, of course, was to commission paintings that would document these developments and emphasize the Crown’s role in them.

One example was Henri Testelin’s Establissement de l’Académie des sciences et fondation de l’Observatoire, 1666 (1673-1681), an imagined scene in which Louis XIV, in all his finery, meets with members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, among them are Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens and Italian astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini. The men are surrounded by the accessories of serious study, including books, papers, celestial and terrestrial globes, a pendulum clock, an armillary sphere, and animal skeletons.

Gabrielle-Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, from the private collection of Marquis de Breteuil. Photo: © Château de Breteuil.

From Testelin’s painting, you’d be forgiven for believing only men practiced science at Versailles, but there were a few remarkable women scientists who also made important contributions. The most notable of these was Emilie du Châtelet, a mathematician who, in writing the standard French translation of Isaac Newton’s basic law of physics from 1687, added her own commentary, including important contributions to our understanding of kinetic energy.

Du Châtelet’s intellectual collaborator and romantic partner Voltaire once described her as “a great man whose only fault was being a woman.” A painting of her by an unknown artist reveals something of her attempts to balance her ambitions with societal expectations of her gender. Though she is dolled up in a ladylike manner with elaborate dress and a gentle, pensive expression, she holds in her right hand a mathematical instrument for measuring distances known as a divider. A hefty copy of Newton’s Principa Mathematica (1687) lies open on her desk and an armillary sphere, used to map celestial constellations, can be seen in the background.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Pineapple in a pot (1733). Photo: © Château de Versailles, Dist. RMN © Christophe Fouin.

As France expanded its imperial reach, budding French naturalists and botanists received new specimens to study from across the world. One fruit that never failed to impress European colonialists was the pineapple, which they “discovered” in South American and the Caribbean in the late fifteenth century and brought back home. These spiky, oval fruits soon became highly fashionable objects coveted by royals who wanted to grow them in their own gardens. In order to pull this off in less than optimal weather conditions, horticulturists in the Netherlands invented the greenhouse and were soon being imitated by their neighbors.

The first homegrown pineapples reached maturity in France in 1733, and were presented to the king on Christmas Day. The momentous feat was recorded by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, a French painter renowned for his still lifes. By the 1750s, hundreds of pineapples were being cultivated and their distinctive form continued to intrigue artists of all kind, becoming a popular subject for paintings or a common design for textiles and decorative arts.

Pierre-Denis Martin, View of the Marly machine and of the Louveciennes castle (1722-23). Photo: © Château de Versailles, Dist. RMN, © Jean-Marc Manaï.

In order to convert Versailles from a mere hunting lodge for the king’s leisure and sports into France’s principal seat of power in the late 17th century, Louis XIV wanted his gardens to be filled with magnificent fountains and waterworks. This was a big ask, given the lack of adequate water source nearby, but engineers managed it by building the largest mechanical device of their time, known as the Marly Machine. This hydraulic system could miraculously raise water in the opposite direction of gravity, over 500 feet up from the Seine to a reservoir, where it would eventually be transported to Versailles.

Though the Marly Machine no longer exists, it survives via various modes of documentation, most notably a painting by the artist Pierre-Denis Martin, who produced many sweeping landscape paintings recording battlefields or architectural arrangements. The  composition gives a sense of the machine’s scale and impressive presence within the natural topography, and we can just make out various paddle wheels and a rod system leading up the hill behind.

As with so many other sophisticated technological achievements at Versailles, the Marly Machine’s invention was ultimately co-opted for political purposes, becoming a proud expression of the king’s extravagant wealth and power.

“Versailles: Science and Splendour” is on view at the Science Museum in London until April 21, 2025.